This was the perfect timing for this poem because it is the summer time! For me as a Year 11 student, my holidays nearly started 1.5 months ago and it has been a time of growth, fun and discovery! 

If you have started your summer holidays or you will be starting them very soon, I want you to firstly be proud of yourself for having come all this way. It has been a chaotic year with usual school stress coupled with a whole pandemic. 

Secondly, I want you to breathe and enjoy the present moment. Do what makes you feel good as long as you stay within your boundaries and values.

Thirdly, you can begin to make holiday plans/bucket lists! This will allow you to prepare for the summer, feel excited and get your life together. Because as I always say, you don’t want to come out of summer being a worse version of yourself.

That is all. Go and enjoy your well-deserved break. 

Oh, and before you go, it would help me so much if you could share this post if you are excited for summer and also subscribe to my weekly newsletter for more updates from me!

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Thank you so much for reading, and have a lovely day! 

• My 2023 Reflections As A Medical Student 
• My First Term of Medical School | Exams, Essays and Events 
• My First Month of Medical School | Moving Out, Freshers And Workload
• The Ultimate Guide To Ace Year 12 | Revision, Friendships And Supercurriculars
• How I Got All A*s At GCSEs | 10 Tips Every Year 11 Student Should Know

Amongst our busy lives, it can be so easy to get caught up in worldly matters. When is the next train? When is the next exam? What is the next task to tick off? What is the next something?

Stop. Breathe in. Breathe out. You may need some time to really talk to yourself and question what you are doing. After this break, you may feel even more motivated and productive to start working. 

When should you stop? It is your choice. 

Maybe when you stop, you might get more motivation. 

Appreciate the fact that today we got to start a fresh new day. Appreciate the fact that we can breathe fresh air. Appreciate every cell flowing through our blood, through our working organs. Appreciate the fact that we have skin to protect ourselves internally. Appreciate that we are all different in our own ways.

But not only this.

Appreciate the fact that we also have low days. Appreciate those times when we feel upset, distraught, angry or worried. We have to appreciate every bit about ourselves. 

When we feel grateful, we realise that we have fully accepted ourselves, and when you accept yourself, the world will accept you.

Appreciate.

When you appreciate, you may feel revived. 

In today’s article, I will be suggesting some activities that you can do that can potentially help you to open more doors and opportunities for you in the future. This may assist you as you are not waiting for your dream future to happen, you are taking action from now. Make sure to stick around for these magical tips:

Focus on academia

Even though not everyone might be academic, there is not hiding the fact that having a qualification in your sleeve can definitely open your doors to future career paths. So, even if your heart is set on msic, having a good set of grades can be a good back-up plan to go to and there is no harm with a back-up plan.

Participate in extracurricular activities

There are so many benefits to participating in extracurricular activities e.g. making new friends, learning a new skill, learning time-management and doing something new. So don’t hesitate to find an extra-curricular activity that suits you whether it is creating a podcast or even joining a virtual webinar.

Find your talents

Everyone is talented in their own ways and you cannot neglect them. Find out what your talents are, because they can be very valuable. For example, if you see that you are great at art, then you could one day sell paintings and make money off that.

Build networks

Especially in your teenage years, you should definitely interact safely with a wide variety of people to learn those valuable communication skills. You never know which lesson you will learn from someone or what help you can offer to someone else. Also, by having many people know you, it can be easier to build a brand.

Participate in the local community or competitions

I remember that one time in 2018, where I decided to take the leap and enter the NHS 70th Celebrations Art Competition and amongst over 150 people, I managed to win my age category! You never know where putting yourself out there will take you, so ensure to get involved.

Read books to gain knowledge

Books are a way to escape into another world, learn new knowledge and also build focus and concentration. So what are you waiting for? Grab some new books that have good information in them, sit down and read!

Discover yourself

Success is very relative? What does it mean to you? Ask yourself these questions and then further develop your goals and fully accept yourself. By adopting self-love and self-confidence from a young age will ensure that you have a good base to achieving your goals.

Take advantage of the facilities around you

If you have the capability to start a podcast right now and you want to do it, what is stopping you? Don’t let fear stop you and take full advantage of what you have been given to start going to your dream destination from now.

Learn new skills

Nowadays, skills make an individual stand out from others. And you don’t even need much to start learning them. Whether it’s by watching free YouTube videos or learning from a course, check out my article on this: How To Learn New Skills For Free

Manage your time well

Time management and self-discipline are two skills that will definitely help you for the future. Get started from now to ensure you manage your time well and adopt positive, sustainable habits.

Those were the ten ways that you can open your doors for more opportunities now and in the future. Be sure to comment down below what are some other ways you can be successful.

And if you want to learn more, check out this recent article to ace your online exams.

Have you ever been told that you have ‘anger issues’? Do you ever feel like you get angry too quickly? Is anger destroying precious relationships with others? Is anger breaking you down?

Anger. An emotion that is completely normal. Yet, it can destroy many seconds of your life that will never return. Anger is an emotion that controls some people. 

So, how can you fix this problem? How can you get out of anger’s clutches?

You can use the QUAC acronym, made by me.

QUAC stands for:

QU – Question Urself

Question yourself and why you feel angry, perhaps more regularly than before. Perhaps, it is because you might simply be tired, or it could be because you are going through some rough patches in your life.

A – Accept

Accept that you feel angry. Admit to it. This is because acceptance is half of all healing. 

C – Confront

You may have to remove things that trigger your anger and also find activities that help with your anger before it gets too worse.

For example, maybe you really do get angry when someone comments about your appearance. In that case, find out why you feel offended and don’t be afraid to tell the person politely that you dislike those types of comments as everyone here deserves respect. 

Before you feel angry, you could take some deep breaths in and out or maybe walk out of that situation. 

Remember, the strongest person is the person who can control their anger.

You may increase your happiness levels by reducing your anger. 

Everyone has their own fears, problems and obstacles. Everyone has their own tests and trials. Everyone is scared of doing something. It might be because you think it is unrealistic, you might feel stressed, uncertain or doubtful. Whenever you have the thought to confront your fear, someone inside you tells you ‘you can’t’. 

Who is this person telling you that you can’t? Why do you feel nervous or worried about your external factors? 

It is your devil. Everyone has a devil within them. It makes you doubt yourself and makes you uncertain about yourself. Why does this devil exist? Well, because this life is a test and it is not paradise. 

So how do you overcome this devil? How do you feel revived? The answer is, you have to find your inner source of happiness. You have to find the right way of confronting the fear.

For example, if you are afraid of public speaking, speak to the devil within you. Question yourself and accept this fear. Then take gradual steps to go ahead and solve this problem the right way.

What would your right, brave self do?

You Are Not Alone. You Got This.

So without any further ado, let’s get started:

Why can’t some people achieve their goals?

• Not specific enough
• No deadline
• No way of incorporating it in their routine
• Not a priority
• Not attainable
• Not measurable 
• No motivation

These may be some of the reasons why you are not able to achieve your goals. You need to figure out what is keeping you from achieving these goals.

How can you really achieve your goals?

Step 1: Identify what type of person you are right now

Before you dive into the meat of how to achieve goals, you have to figure out your starting point which is who you are right now. Try to identify what type of person you are in 5 different aspects in your life e.g. family, friends, career/education, hobbies/spirituality and health. Be quite detailed on this and this will assist you on reflecting who you are right now and give you direction to your goals. For example, you may realise in terms of health, that you may be exercising very little.

Step 2: Identify who you want to become

After realising who you are as a person, you now want to start thinking about your dream life and the exact person you want to be. Again, make a table or create a vision board and write what your ‘dream identity’ would be doing on each of those 5 aspects you focused on earlier. You may start to really discover those things that you want to do. For example, your ‘dream identity’ might be exercising at least once a week in the ‘health’ aspect.  

Step 3: Write specific steps on each aspect

By doing the previous step, you now know how you want to be in each aspect of your life. It is now time to break down each step. For example, in your ‘health’ aspect of your table or vision board, you may have said that you want to exercise once a week. Now you really want to ask yourself the following questions: What type of exercise will you do? What time of the day will you do this? Do you need to buy a gym membership? How long will you exercise? Answer these questions.

Step 4: Break it down

Now that you know all the details of every small statement on each aspect of your ‘dream identity’, you can start to really take those steps to ensure that you fulfill these goals. For example, if you want to treadmill at the gym once a week, get yourself a gym membership as soon as possible.

Step 5: Incorporate it into your to do lists and/or habit tracker

You have paid for your gym membership. You know all the steps to go and exercise so go ahead and write down your first day of ‘exercise’ in your planning system or to-do list where you plan every day. If you want to gym every Sunday for one hour, add it to every Sunday of your academic yearly planner or bullet journal. You could also add it to your habit tracker.

Step 6: Don’t focus on the outcome. It is a system and a lifestyle change, not a temporary goal.

When writing it on your to-do list for the month, remember that this is not something that you will stop after a certain period. It is a lifestyle change. If you plan to exercise once a week, it is something you may want to do for the rest of your life. So enjoy the journey when you exercise every time and don’t necessarily focus on the outcome.

Step 7: Consistency.

The last step is extremely important. You need to pick yourself up in the days where you feel like to break out of that ‘dream identity’. Embody that ‘dream identity’ every day and whenever you don’t feel like going and doing something, ask yourself what your ‘dream identity’ would be doing. Don’t make it a dream anymore, make it a reality, Be consistent.

Those were some of the ways that you can fulfill your goals. Follow this step-by-step guide and this may help you to really achieve your goals and make it a reality in 2021.

What is your number 1 goal for 2021? Comment down below.

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Thank you for reading, and have a lovely day!

I wanted to share my own experience of 2020 and the lessons I learnt. We are taught to learn by venturing out into the world, but this time I learnt some lessons from the comfort of my own home.

So here goes… 20 life lessons I learnt in 2020, a revolutionary year.

Be more accepting of mistakes

As much as perfectionism may make you work your best, it can sometimes be detrimental to your health. Therefore, I would suggest remembering that no one is perfect and everyone commits mistakes and you have to accept and learn from these mistakes. Mentions go to Smile2Jannah who posted a video with Hamza Tzortsis a few years ago and Hamza mentioned something like this.

Create an identity of who you want to be.

This year, I really questioned my goals, ambitions and my purpose in life which is pretty good because it really allows you to carve out your own future. As Tim Han (the CEO of Success Insider) suggested, you should create an identity of who you want to be and then pretend you are that identity.

You don’t need to have an issue to have a story

I remember watching this TED talk from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie saying that she sometimes lied to people saying that she had a terrible childhood as it may sound ‘inspirational’ or because other writers do it, when in reality she had a wonderful childhood. This is to show that you don’t need to come out of a dark past to be successful in the future.

Don’t be afraid to stand out of the crowd.

This year, I stepped out of my comfort zone by creating my own podcast and promoting to people around me. This may have been difficult in the beginning, but now I am happy and thriving in terms of my podcast Alhamdulillah.

You will always get haters.

Speaking of my podcast, I then realised that some people were not very supportive when seeing me create my podcast and doing something a bit out of the ordinary. You just cannot please everyone and there will always be people who may be jealous or insecure about you. You can’t fear hate as if you do, you may regret reaching your deathbed having not accomplished your goals.

Be cautious of strangers

Do not trust strangers blindly, even your best friends, as once upon a time, your best friend was also a stranger. Even your closest friends can leave you. Don’t panic but be aware of what you tell people.

Learn to have fun

Nowadays, it seems that the only way of having fun is by using your phone and scrolling through social media. That may be one form of entertainment, but there are so many other forms of entertainment to check out, such as playing games, chatting to your family and friends, exercising and even organisation.

Have other extracurriculars

This year, I really broadened my horizons and introduced some extra-curriculars into my life such as my podcasts and my Instagram pages ‘@surobiscribbles’ and ‘@thechatlibrary’. Again, this helped build my brand, kept me busy and helped me to have something to do alongside academia.

Don’t be a passive reactor, be a creator.

Another lesson from Tim Han that I learnt is to not just depend on your emotions based on your environment and current circumstances, but instead take control of your thoughts and almost have a strong mindset to determine your emotions based on what you want your brain to think. You control your brain, not the other way round.

When uncertain, list out the pros and cons.

There may be some decisions you have to take in your life, and I realised that you may need to put your thoughts in pen to paper. If you want to make a decision, make a ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ list or a ‘for’ and ‘against’ table and list out all the factors. This helps you to see exactly your thoughts in front of you.

Everyone fakes it till they make it.

Everyone who you see is faking it till they make it. So do the same. 

Learn to forgive yourself.

In Islam, it says to not let guilt eat you up. Forgive yourself for any mistakes you have made in the past. Seek Allah’s forgiveness. And then just move on. This can make you feel quite peaceful. If you are finding it hard to see the positives and forgive yourself, speak to someone and get help.

You are not missing out on anything in life.

Do not ever think you are missing out on something in life. For example, if you have taken the decision to study instead of party with good intentions, just believe in Allah’s plan. Don’t think you are missing out on anything in life.

Accept yourself unconditionally.

Self-acceptance is vital. This was also mentioned in one of my favourite books so far which is known as ‘You Are A Badass’ by Jen Sincero. Self-acceptance helps with self-belief and self-love too.

Life is short, simple and sweet.

Life can have many obstacles. But, also, life is not that hard. If you live with the mindset that life is extremely hard, then it will be hard. Always believe that life can be beautiful and everyone is trying to make the most of it despite their problems. 

Always thank God.

As soon as you lose gratitude, it can impact everything. Please do stay grateful and thank God for everything you do. An example of this is when one of my posts in ‘@thechatlibrary’ Instagram page was liked by ‘@salamgirlpodcast’ who are two quite famous podcasters. Also, they reposted one of my posts in ‘@surobiscribbles’ on their story. I thank Allah for that.

Consume positive content.

This year, there was a lot of negativity in the news and people going through hardship. However, you must ensure you do not get consumed in it, however hard it may be. Listen to motivational videos, read self-help books and stay with positive people.

Have a good support system.

Speaking of positive people, you need to have a good support system especially if you are a teenager going through a lot or someone who is quite busy. These people can be there to help and support you and obviously, return the favour. Being giving really makes you feel better.

Don’t be ruled by the ego.

The ego is sometimes one of the biggest enemies for humans. If someone attacks you, you may immediately feel like you have to respond something back or gain revenge. Just relax. Don’t take anything personally.

Emotions are a temporary state of mind.

Remember that if you are going through a low day, your anger, frustration, nerves or sadness is temporary. Similarly, if you just achieved something, that happiness, thrill or excitement will not last forever. You need to remember that life moves and life is too short not to enjoy it.

These were some of the lessons I learnt this year. These are my personal lessons, and if you have any lessons that you learnt, comment down below.

Please check out my other articles!

Thank you so much for reading, and have a lovely day!

It feels quite sad to me that in the day and age of the 21st century, when more people are supposed to be happier and healthier due to all the medical advancements, networks and facilities, there seems to be, in fact, more sadness. More people, even young teenagers feel lonely and helpless and don’t know who to seek help from. This is extremely saddening and loneliness is what can cause the downfall of many minds.

Especially with this COVID-19 pandemic, many people feel even more lonely than ever before.

But please do not think you are alone. You got this. You have neighbours right next to you, help at your fingertips and people to help you within a few seconds or minutes. Do not ever think that this is the end of the world. I am telling you, there have been many who have gone through the worst of the worst and have come out of it, so you can do it. You got this.

This problem is temporary. You just need to stop panicking, and work step by step. Gain help from others. And it is possible to get rid of problems.

You can be the first one to smile. You can be the first one to compliment people. You can be the first one to spread positive energy. You can be the first one to build a community of happiness.

You Got This.

If you need to, feel free to contact any of these helplines (help is not too far away):

https://www.childline.org.uk/

https://www.mind.org.uk/

https://www.kooth.com/

Please share this short, motivational reminder to anyone and everyone. 

What does productivity mean to you? Comment down below.

Please check out my other articles relating to Islamic content, My Experiences, Teenage Advice, Book Reviews and Poetry.

Thank you for reading, and have a lovely day!

Everyone has a different definition of success. Some may perceive success to be gaining wealth and fame, for others it may just be having shelter, food and water with their family. 

Success is something that you need to decide your definition on. But one thing is for sure, we are all successful in our own ways already. This is because everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses and it is time for you to find out what your talents and successes are. Some may be what you worked hard for, while others may be an ‘unfair advantage’ (see the book ‘The Unfair Advantage).

So what you really need to do is figure out what your definition of success is.

Follow that and pave your own way. Yes, there will be obstacles but the beauty is we are all successful, but we are just in our path to achieve a different success.

Please share this short, motivational reminder to anyone and everyone. 

What does success mean to you? Comment down below.

Please check out my other articles relating to Islamic content, My Experiences, Teenage Advice, Book Reviews and Poetry.

Thank you for reading, and have a lovely day!